We are pleased to present a reading with Barbara Thomas from her newest poetry collection, The Last Green Valley. Barbara will be joined by fellow poet Joan Bernard, who will also read a selection of her work. Please RSVP your attendance to deb@bookloversgourmet.com or 508-949-6232. Masks are required for anyone not fully vaccinated. Signed copies will be available for purchase.

Bios:

Barbara Thomas grew up in the Last Green Valley. She earned a Masters Degree from Boston University in Education and was an English and Reading teacher for 35 years. She is an active member of the New England Poetry Club, the Greek Institute, Glenbrook, a nature writing group in New Hampshire. She was a Joiner/Umass participant for ten years and received the Jeff Mayle Award for her recent book, The Last Green Valley, Cherry Grove Press, 2019. Other publications are a chapbook, Seduced by Sighs of Trees, Cloudkeeper Press, 2007 and poems published in The Paterson Literary Review, 2015, Fiele-Festa, an online publication, Lalitamaba, 2005, and in several Bagel Bard Anthologies. Barbara’s poem, Hickory Nuts will be published in Treelines, An anthology of 21^st century  American Poems, by Grayson Books in 2022.

A native of Thompson, CT, Joan Bernard divides her life between Thompson and Boston, MA. Always a poet, her work morphed into a level of earnestness in the 1980s when she mentored with the late Ottone Riccio, teacher of creative writing and author of books, notably The Intimate Art of Writing Poetry,” both privately and in the classroom. Since that time, she received tutorship from Fran Quinn, former Poet-in-Residence at Butler University and founding member of The Worcester County Poetry Association. Joan has studied at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and at the William Joiner Institute/UMass Boston. Her poetry has been published in The Main Street Rag, the Aurorean, Connecticut River Review, The North American Review, The Bellowing Ark and in two anthologies. She is in the process of culling her poems for a chapbook submission to a literary press.